Upon A Pale Horse (Bio-Thriller)

by Russell Blake

  He jotted down the Frenchman’s contact information and created a blind email account using his middle name – Stanley – and once it was active he emailed a brief introductory message to Bertrand, in the hopes that someone on his end checked his correspondence. He chose his words carefully, requesting some time with the scientist as a featured figure in his new article series.

  Jeffrey next turned to the job he’d been dreading – recreating the pages of the spreadsheet. He opened Excel and settled in, closing his eyes for a moment while he sorted through his memory and found page one. After a brief pause he began entering headings and numbers, the data as clear as though he was reading from the pages. He stretched another cup of coffee forever, and after several more hours had recreated the entire document.

  The woman who ran the little café was obliging and told him how to print his file, and was more than willing to sell him an eight-gigabyte flash drive. He returned to the computer and saved the data to the drive, and sent the document to the printer. Once it was safely in the queue he closed the spreadsheet and wiped the temp file it had created. He then collected the dozen pages the printer spewed forth, shielding them with his body from the watchful eye of the proprietress, and accidentally tripped over the power cord, jerking it free of the wall and hopefully dumping the printer’s memory in the process.

  Money changed hands and he folded the documents and slipped them into the inside pocket of his jacket. He suspected there was some way an interested party could retrieve the data from the printer if they were motivated, but it would have to be an acceptable risk – he’d covered his tracks as best he could, but he couldn’t be a hundred percent on everything.

  His next stop was a cell phone store across the street, where he purchased a moderately priced disposable with a hundred minutes of talk time and a local number. Once it had been activated and he confirmed it worked, he moved to a print shop he’d passed the day before that advertised documents created while you waited – at least that’s what he’d thought the banners in the display window said. He shouldered his way into the shop and was greeted by a morose young man sporting a sparse goatee, a beatnik-era haircut, and an olive green T-shirt depicting Che Guevara staring into eternity. Jeffrey picked up a business card and pointed to it, and the clerk began rattling off prices and terms in lightning French. Jeffrey turned the sample business card over and wrote a name with his new number below it, along with a title: James Stanley, Investigative Journalist, 46a rue Saint-Guillaume, 75007 Paris.

  Jeffrey pantomimed that he wanted some cards made, and after a few minutes of tortured back and forth, the young man snorted and addressed him in English.

  “You want these on good, or the best, stock? And how many?”

  Jeffrey was taken aback but didn’t show it. “The best, and make it a hundred. But I need them as soon as possible.”

  “Hmm. Yes, I suppose you would.”

  The clerk tapped keys on the calculator in front of him, paused, took another look at Jeffrey’s face and entered more, and then turned the calculator to face Jeffrey so he could read the display. As Jeffrey peered at the tiny screen the clerk moved over a few feet and addressed another customer, an older woman, who had entered the shop after him. The two had a heated exchange with much gesticulation, and then the woman left, slamming the door on her way out. The clerk’s long, jaundiced face remained impassive as he returned his attention to Jeffrey.

  “Seems very expensive,” Jeffrey commented, and the man shrugged.

  “You can make your own on a computer and cut them with scissors.”

  “No, I’ll take them. How long until they can be ready?”

  The man regarded the clock on the wall, as if making difficult calculations in his head. “One hour.”

  Jeffrey fished money out of his pocket and handed it to the clerk, who seemed annoyed that the high price and his indifferent treatment hadn’t rid him of the American. He counted the bills with studied detachment, then wrote out a ticket and stapled the hand-written card to it before opening a book of sample typefaces.

  “Pick one for your name, and the other for the rest of the information. Also, choose a layout.”

  Jeffrey did, and the man scribbled another few notes on the order and then closed the book.

  “Bon. In an hour,” he said, and then spun and made his way to one of the tables in the rear work area, where an obese woman was typing on a computer. He handed her the order and she glanced at it without comment.

  Back out on the street, Jeffrey wandered aimlessly for a few blocks, killing time while trying to avoid jarring his head with any sudden movements. He stopped at a small bakery for a croissant, and then sat at one of the sidewalk tables and watched the Parisian crowd go by. When he tired of the mindless pastime he found another internet café and logged onto his new email, confirming that there were no messages.

  With another glance at his watch, he decided to try reaching the scientist on the phone, in the hopes that he could get an interview within the next few days. If that failed, he had no plan B, other than stalking the man and looking for an opportune time to effectively kidnap him.

  A woman answered, and when he asked for Bertrand, he was connected to another extension that rang five times before a younger female voice came on the line.

  “Allo?”

  “Hello. Parlez-vous Anglais?” Jeffrey asked.

  “Oui. Yes, I do. How may I help you?”

  “I sent an email earlier. My name is James Stanley. I’m an investigative reporter doing a story on retroviruses. I’m in Paris, and I want to interview Dr. Bertrand.”

  “An email,” she said. He heard fingers tapping at keys at blinding speed. “Mm, yes, here it is.” She took a moment to read it. “I will need to ask the doctor, Monsieur Stanley. When did you want to try to see him, and how long will you need?”

  That was more positive than he’d hoped for – she hadn’t just completely shut him down.

  “Anytime he can fit me in. And I don’t imagine I’ll need more than an hour. But he’s a central figure in my feature, and it’s very important that he has an opportunity to present his perspective.”

  “One moment, please,” she said, and muzak drifted over the line. A man carrying two bags of groceries, one in each arm, nearly collided with him, and Jeffrey stepped out of the way, pressing closer to the building to present a smaller target while he waited. The pedestrians moved with the urgency of gazelles chased by a pride of lions, and Jeffrey was viewed as an undesirable impediment, an obstacle to timely passage. He had just about given up on the receptionist and was going to call back when she returned.

  “The doctor can see you today at four, if you can make it. For forty-five minutes.”

  “That’s perfect! At the Institute?”

  “Yes, third floor. You will need to ask the guards for an escort. Just use the doctor’s name.”

  “Excellent. Four o’clock. Thank you.”

  “It is not I you should thank. The doctor always tries to be accommodating for the press,” she said, and then the phone went dead in Jeffrey’s ear.

  Even the truculent look from the print shop attendant upon his return and the additional twenty minutes of waiting for his order to be processed couldn’t bring Jeffrey down from his high. He was going to see one of the top virologists in the world in five hours, and hopefully would be able to solve the riddle of his brother’s diagram and spreadsheet.

  Whether that would be in time to save the planet was a different story, but he’d take the small wins when he got them.

  FORTY

  Dr. Bertrand

  Jeffrey waited nervously in the outer waiting room of the Pasteur Institute’s third floor administrative offices, shifting on the leather couch as he inspected his shoes, trying to appear calm while his synapses tingled with adrenaline. He hadn’t dared go back to the hotel and risk detection, so he’d spent his afternoon meandering around Paris, with several breaks for coffee, which he was now paying for as the caffein
e jangled his frayed nerves.

  The room was modern, cold, the lines clean, the furniture contemporary; the few magazines on the table in front of him were French scientific journals, from what he could tell. He’d drawn a new version of the virus diagram and the bar charts, and was satisfied that his newest masterpiece was as detailed as the original. He had the spreadsheets and his handiwork in his jacket pocket. Another notepad and his French cell phone lay in a newly purchased a satchel, along with a recorder and a hundred business cards he would likely never need.

  A tall, frosty woman with mannishly cut hair the color of smoke emerged from one of the doorways behind the reception counter, and after a brief, hushed discussion with the secretary, opened the small half door separating the area from where Jeffrey sat and approached him.

  “Monsieur Stanley?”

  “Yes,” Jeffrey said, rising from the sofa, taking her outstretched hand and shaking it. She had the grip of a longshoreman, he thought, and her cobalt eyes scrutinized him with the precision of a laser. For some reason he felt inadequate under her blistering gaze, but he shrugged it off.

  “The doctor will see you. Please. Follow me, yes?” she said, the final word not so much a question as an order.

  Jeffrey walked behind her, and once through the door found himself in an industrial hallway, sterile and lacking any furniture or art, painted a polar white that the overhead fluorescent lights imbued with an alien quality. She led him to the final door on the right, and paused just before she knocked on it.

  “Forty-five minutes,” she said, her tone as playful as a marine sergeant’s barked drill, and then she rapped on the door three times, each percussive pop echoing in the hall like a firecracker.

  A male voice called from inside and the door buzzed, a remote electric security latch presumably triggered by the occupant. She pushed the door open, her eyes never leaving his face as he nodded his thanks and edged by her. He could feel her stare boring holes in his back as he approached the inner office, where a pudgy man with oversized horn-rimmed glasses on his bald head sat behind a desk large enough to house a family of four.

  “Dr. Bertrand. Thank you so much for meeting with me,” Jeffrey said, his feet sinking into the plush carpet in the scientist’s office as he moved toward the desk.

  “My pleasure, Mr. Stanley, my pleasure. I’m sorry I have so little time for you, but I’m afraid my days are all like this – many hours of work, and not enough time to get everything I need done…” Bertrand said with a small, apologetic frown. “Your email says you are doing an article about retrovirology?”

  “Yes, Doctor. Specifically, on lab-created retroviruses. And the potential for disaster if one of these experiments were ever to make it out of the laboratory and into the general population,” Jeffrey explained, pulling his recorder out of his bag and setting it onto the desk. “May I record this?”

  “Certainly.”

  Jeffrey activated the recorder and pushed it between them. “As I was saying, I’m doing a series about retrovirology, recent advances in science, and the possibility that something lab-generated could make it into the real world.”

  “All facilities doing this sort of research will use level three or four bio-containment protocols, so the odds of anything escaping the lab are so remote as to be incalculable,” Bertrand assured him. “Everyone involved in the field is aware of the risks, and it has become standard to have these kinds of systems in order to protect against accidents.”

  “That’s reassuring. Before we get too far into my questions, though, could we go back and touch on your background? You were one of the members of the team that discovered HIV, were you not?”

  “Yes. Working with Montagnier in the eighties. I was a young scientist in a cutting-edge field. It was a very exciting time. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for that discovery, you know.”

  “Yes. And a tremendous honor for you, as well,” Jeffrey said.

  “It’s all part of the job. Most of which involves impossibly long hours in the lab, you know. Nothing glamorous, I’m afraid. Just test tubes and microscopes.”

  They spent some time going back and forth about the group that Bertrand led, and some of the noteworthy advances he’d pioneered, and then Jeffrey nudged the discussion into the direction he needed it to go.

  “As part of my investigations, I’ve interviewed other scientists, and I’ve gotten a good picture of some of the dangers involved in certain types of research. Biological warfare programs, for instance,” Jeffrey started.

  “There are no more biological warfare programs. They were outlawed in 1972, and virtually every country in the world has signed the convention banning them.”

  “I understand that. But I’ve also spoken to some who claim that there have been secret programs, in violation of the agreement.”

  Bertrand’s eyes hardened, and his tone went from one of cheerful good nature to unfriendliness. “I wouldn’t know anything about that. France has no offensive biological warfare program. That is a matter of public record.”

  “Yes, I know. But there are other countries with advanced capabilities, and there have been allegations. They’re not a secret. The Soviets had aggressive offensive programs that continued until the fall of the Soviet Union, and which continue, some believe, to this day.”

  “I’m not sure that there is a question in all this. Is there?”

  Jeffrey shook his head. “I suppose not. I’m trying to understand the implications of a lab-created virus making its way into the general population.”

  “That would be most unlikely.”

  “What would you say if I told you that I have uncovered evidence that there is such a virus, and that it looks as though it’s in imminent danger of being released?”

  Bertrand drew back, clearly uncomfortable. “Monsieur, this interview is at an end. I am not going to entertain flights of fancy or science fiction. I don’t mean to be rude, but this is not what I agreed to participate in,” Bertrand said, and lifted his telephone handset from the cradle and prepared to dial.

  Jeffrey extracted the diagram from his pocket and wordlessly placed it in front of Bertrand. The Frenchman’s finger hovered over the phone keypad, and then he slowly set the phone back down as he squinted at the drawing. He pulled his glasses down from his head and peered at Jeffrey’s diagram, his complexion going pale as the minutes slowly ticked by. Eventually he put the paper down and fixed Jeffrey with a shocked gaze.

  “Where…where did you get this?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Do you know what it is?”

  “I…I would need to study it more closely to be sure.”

  “I’ve been told it is a variant of H1N1. Spanish influenza. But that it has been modified.”

  Bertrand stared at the diagram again. “How?”

  “In one of those offensive bio-warfare laboratories that the Biological Weapons Convention says no longer exists,” Jeffrey said.

  “I mean how has it been modified? Do you know?”

  Jeffrey let him absorb the drawing, and then pulled the spreadsheet from his pocket and placed the pages on the desk next to the diagram. “It’s been made more lethal, more infectious, deadlier. The reason I wanted to meet with you is because I suspect you’re one of the few people who can tell me just how much more dangerous this new variant is.”

  Bertrand stared at the spreadsheet like it was toxic. “What is that?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  Bertrand began paging through the sheaf of paper, then looked at Jeffrey. “These are results. It looks to me like trial results. A data set.”

  “So they should be able to tell you what it is we’re dealing with?”

  “Possibly. I would need to enter everything and run some models. I ask you again – where did you get this?”

  Jeffrey sighed. This was the moment of truth. The point where he would need to trust the Frenchman with his life. If he called it wrong, or if the scientist was somehow involved in the scheme, Jeffrey
would be dead in a matter of hours.

  “It started with a plane crash…”

  Five minutes later, Jeffrey finished, feeling like he’d run a marathon.

  Bertrand was studying the diagram again. “I’ll need time. But if this is what it appears to be, then you’re correct. This is an unprecedented disaster. I just can’t believe that it could have originated in America. It makes no sense.”

  “The German said that there was a faction in the U.S. government, or that colluded with the government, that’s been working on reducing the world population for four decades. That he was part of their scheme, and that the projects he was involved with were approved in the clandestine back rooms. He said that HIV was part of that.”

  “He said what?” Bertrand demanded incredulously.

  Jeffrey took him through the German’s claims. His developing an immune-suppressive agent in chimps, and then for humans. The incredibly coincidental timing of the global AIDS epidemic, and his observations of the timing of the AIDS outbreaks and the hepatitis B vaccination trials in the U.S. and the smallpox vaccination programs in Africa.

  “These are very dangerous claims, and I would be very, very careful about voicing them. Certainly, there’s a case that can be made for HIV being lab-created, but you’ll find it’s a controversial topic that nobody wishes to debate,” Bertrand warned.

  “I’m aware of that. It’s just one of many things these days that’s best not discussed, apparently. Anything that contradicts an official explanation is treated as conspiracy nonsense, even if all the data supports the alternative explanation.”

  “I’m not going to debate ideology or ethics. But this…this, if it is an actually model of a modified virus, is frightening,” Bertrand snapped.